Reno’s Spider Bug

It Rises

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As you may recall, UndiscoveredWanderings spent a good chunk of summer 2016 in Reno, Nevada–part of our three-month inaugural road trip that took us across America, plus a couple excursions to Canada and Mexico. Our stay in Reno was short but memorable: we went drifting, found a swap meet for car people, visited a foreign country just outside Virginia City, and we even did a feature on the famous In-N-Out, which is something we’re sadly missing on the East Coast.What wonderful burgers that place has!

It was during our visit to In-N-Out that we noticed, around the corner, a creature hanging out on the roof of a neighboring building.

And that’s when we met the spider car sculpture, adorning the top of Scudder’s Performance automotive shop. Technically in the neighboring city of Sparks, the Spider Bug, as it’s locally known, is already famous among locals and car buffs. Once built for another purpose by artist David Farmbrough, Mr. Scudder rescued the spider–which has an old VW Bug for a body–from the scrap heap and made it the unofficial mascot of his business. The Spider Bug has sat atop Scudder’s Performance for the last several years now, making it a welcome fixture in a city known for quirky things.